


One's Own

by glinda4thegood



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Urban Fantasy, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glinda4thegood/pseuds/glinda4thegood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parauniverse story: Elegy Jasper is a para who helps the police solve mysteries. Called to Redbark to help find the truth of a postal carrier's murder, Elegy finds an unsettling mystery, evidence of a high profile criminal, and meets one of the para community's most influential <i>were</i> leaders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One's Own

_The sad truth is I find no peace at home._

 

When I'm on the road I miss the solitary haven of my own bedroom, which is always far more peaceful than anywhere I've ever _worked._ A false sense of normality can sometimes be maintained by promising myself, if I can just get the work done, I can go home and file the inevitably messy details of the latest case in the big green boxes behind my desk. I will have time to clear my mind, mow the lawn, pay the bills, write in my journal, go to bed early and sleep without dreaming.

But the next day home after a job, I always find myself pushing a cart through crowded aisles in the local megamarket. Without permission my eyes register, my mind comments as neighbors and community members rush past.

 _Mrs. Shellton picking up green tea bags._ Dyed her hair again, kind of a reddish-blonde this time. Her eyes laugh while her fingers poke at those bright curls. _Notice me! Not bad for an old broad who won't see 65 again._

Down the aisle, and there's testosterone fog near the meat cases. Fred Bond, scoping out a young thing in shorts and a tank top. _Married three months and thinking about cheating._

One of the Fielding kids reading a comic. She can't be more than 12. Wrist and arm bruises are barely hidden by the unseasonal flannel shirt. _Someone in the family plays rough._

On the drive home my mind points out a piece of shoreline some developer turned into a mile-long stretch of condominiums during the last year. Dunes once as sweetly curved as a line of baby buttocks now look more like old men's cheeks that have been sitting too long in corduroy trousers.

The clues are there, scribed into the behavior of every living creature, into the substance of field and forest, home, den and nest. The mind can ignore environmental and behavioral information, or translate it incompletely. But the clues are there, and you don't have to be _para_ to see them.

If you are _para_ the larger clues are written in invisible glyphs into the very air, imparted directly to the mind, to the soul, by Whoever it is that lends humanity the illusion our ship remains above the water line in the wake of entropy.

I am _para._ When the hormones kicked in, just before my twelfth birthday, the fog cleared off the glass and left me looking at the reflection of Her eyes, through Her eyes, into a greater world. It was quite a rush. I understand why so many _paras_ are deeply religious people; you touch Her, you change.

 _At twelve I was ecstatic and hopeful. At thirty I was lonely, and tired of following the clues._

 

 **TAWSHASEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE**

The photos fanned across the table, full color documentation of the end of a woman's life.

"I need to see the scene before we go to the morgue." I shuffled aimlessly between close-up images of a shredded cheek and forearm. The glossy paper rendered the blood as dark brown. The marks on the woman's face made me think of a childish attempt at applying Halloween cat-whiskers with cheap grease paint. "Could I speak with your _para_ after we go out there?"

"Sure. I'll give her a call," Sheriff Perquette said. "Whatever you need, Miss Jasper. We're glad you're here."

In my business competent and sympathetic professionals like Sheriff Perquette are rare. Normally when I'm called in as consultant on police matters the first thing I feel radiating off the PIC is a mix of hostility and frustration. Law enforcement PICs, persons-in-charge, seemed to view professional _paras_ as unreliable equipment that can't be forced to operate within predictable specs.

Maybe it was because of Tawshasee County's large _para_ population, I thought as I followed Sheriff Perquette through the county building. Maybe it was just because he was a nice guy.

Perquette stopped at the front desk and reached for a phone. The receptionist looked me over with a candid, subtly hostile expression that slipped into a polite mask before the sheriff ended his call. Not because I was on her turf, I realized, but because I was _para_. She submerged the hostility into practiced neutrality when our eyes met. A reaction I'd seen before.

"Tricia's home. We can swing by on after looking at the scene." Sheriff Perquette held the front door for me and smiled as I thanked him. For a moment I caught a glimpse of a woman's laughing face, the image of a small towheaded boy, and felt his inner sense of well-being and self-assurance.

"You've tuned in." Perquette opened the back door of the squad car. His face was now professionally blank.

"Sometimes it just happens," I said. "I'm not trying to pry. But on a case like this, I can't choose to be selective. I have to be completely open."

"I know." Perquette guided the car into the traffic flow. "My wife's _para_."

He didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask. Instead I studied the picturesque Lincoln-log buildings we passed. Downtown Redbark was a compact stretch of two blocks packed with touristy moccasin and fudge gift shops, interspersed with a credit union office, bakery, and a roomy corner lot than looked like the location of a weekend farmers' market.

We turned at the town's single traffic light. Barber shop, bait shop, and a big combination gas station/drive-through fast food business followed in quick succession. People gossiped at the gas tanks, waved and smiled at each other. The bustling, small-town atmosphere thrummed against my opened mind. Redbark seemed to be a healthy, industrious community.

"Good," I said.

"Good?" Perquette asked.

"The town. It feels -- healthy." I tried not to think too hard about the last small town I'd visited on a murder case, buried between postcard perfect rolling hills. That place had felt soiled and maggot-ridden even before I'd found the real horror. A week of solitary meditation had been necessary to recover from that one.

"Good people in Redbark. Good people of all kinds," Perquette said.

"And at least one bad one." I shut my eyes and listened to the hypnotic hum of car tires against blacktop. "You've got a 37-year-old woman, found dead, propped up against a tree alongside a gravel county road. She was a postal worker, last seen finishing her route about 10 miles from where her body was discovered."

"Wilma. Her name was Wilma."

The inner outrage he felt over Wilma's death made Perquette's voice shake as he said her name. "She was a nice woman. I saw her in church every Sunday."

"Married? Divorced?" I asked. "Children? Immediate family?"

"Never married," Perquette answered with a steadier tone. "Her mother lives in Belham, about 40 miles from here. Wilma lived alone, but had lots of friends."

"The medical examiner's report said she died from a blow to the head." Dinosaur-backed hills flexed and rolled just beyond the edge of the ever-present hardwood forests. No wonder Redbark was a haven for were. "What hit her?"

"Something blunt. The M.E. said it might have been concrete or rock," Perquette answered. "Wilma always wore a funky wool hat when she drove her route. It's missing. There were fibers in the wound, so she was wearing the hat when she got hit. It must have happened fast. There was no indication she put up a fight."

The car slowed, turned, and I heard the crunch of pea-sized gravel under the car's tires.

"She wasn't even a mile off the main road." Perquette let the patrol car coast to a halt. "The body wasn't hidden."

I stepped out of the car into the sun, into the odors of baking grass and dust. The heat felt good on my skin. Only small leaves on the topmost branches of nearby trees rustled against each other. When I stepped under the interlaced canopy of branches and greenery, the air was still and too warm.

Perquette led the way up a grassy bank toward an old oak tree. "They found her sitting here."

I took a deep breath. "You probably know the routine," I said. "Don't interrupt. Don't touch me. Please, don't talk until I'm done."

He shook his head, and took a couple of steps back. He did know the routine.

 _Mother,_ I prayed, feeling as if my skin was expanding to become part of the air and the earth. _I would see._

A long, dark time later I felt a breeze. The woods came back into focus. I stumbled down the bank into the road.

Perquette stood near the car, talking into a radio handset. "Get anything?" He watched as I fell onto the car seat, frown lines cutting deep grooves above his eyes.

"I don't know." A numb, tingling spot in my head was the only indication I had tried to use my _para_ ability. "I went way under. Deeper than I usually go. My mind is still processing."

"I got a call from the station." Perquette turned the car into a sharp U-turn and headed us back toward the highway. "One of the people on Wilma's route wants me stop by after we've seen Tricia. She's got something she wants to tell me."

 

 

Tawshasee County's official psychic lived in a white ranch-style home surrounded by neat flower beds and a brightly-colored scatter of toys. A small latte-colored woman with extravagantly long, straight black hair stood on the front porch. She waved as we pulled into her driveway, and walked toward the car with a quick, long-legged stride.

Perquette got out of the car and let her into the back seat with me. My skin prickled, and I sneezed at the same time she did. She extended a hand, but pulled it back quickly as something invisible arced between us, leaving a smell like singed hair in the air.

"Elegy Jasper, this is Tricia Meyer." Perquette shut the door, and returned to his place behind the wheel, seeming oblivious to our discomfort. "We're headed out to see Haze. Want to ride along?"

"Sure. The kids will be gone for another hour." Tricia rubbed her arms and kept her distance. "Elegy. That's a curious name. You're putting off a hell of a field," she said. "You're stronger than I am."

Not by much. My skin was puckering into goosebumps in response to her energy. Closing my eyes, I tried to isolate the essence of what she was. I could smell milk and graham crackers, and a sweet floral note from her shampoo, but no images came.

"My mother swears she meant to name me Christine." I opened my eyes and smiled her. "Most people call me Ell. You're nearly as strong as I am."

"Not strong enough," Tricia said.

 _Hurt. It hurt._ The pain in her voice rubbed against me like an new emery board on a hangnail. "You're too close," I reminded her.

"That's what Old Robin said." Perquette watched the road without glancing back through the grill that separated us from the front seat. "We've only had to use Tricia's services a couple of times in the past. She helped, those times."

"Old Robin?" I knew Tawshasee County's request for my services had been made at the recommendation of the unofficial leader of the area's _para_ community, but I hadn't been given a name.

"Robin Taylor." Respect and affection displaced the hurt in Tricia's voice. "He said he hopes to meet you while you're here."

The name seemed familiar. "I'd like that. Will you tell me what you saw?"

The hair on the back of my neck jumped to attention. Tricia wrapped her arms around her own waist and began to rock on the edge of the car seat, closing her eyes and making little exhaling noises as if she fought some physical pain. "Didn't see," she said. "Heard. Coarse, guttural, sharp noise. Like coughing -- or barking."

"Damn." Perquette said the word like he didn't swear very often.

"Dog?" I asked, "or _were_?"

Tricia shook her head. The question worried her, but she'd expected it.

"I've never heard anything like it, certainly not from our _para_ community. I didn't feel _were_ ," she said emphatically, staring at the back of Perquette's head.

"That's all you picked up?" I didn't need to be _para_ to read these two. Someone in town thought the death had been caused by a _were_.

"She was surprised." Tricia's fingers massaged her temples, and I could feel her field lessen in strength. "She'd been dead only a few hours when they found her. I touched her, and didn't see anything at all. I heard the barking. I felt the surprise. I didn't sense fear or distress."

"Did you, Miss Jasper?" Perquette's neck strained with the effort it took him not to stare at us in the rear view mirror. "Has anything focused for you yet?"

"No." I tried to keep any hint of apology from my voice. "I need to sit by myself for a few minutes, soon, and think."

"You went under." Tricia huddled up against her corner of the car seat, like she was trying to get as far from me as possible. "You didn't just see, you went under. That's why you're all jazzed up. I've never felt it that strong."

"Shit." I'm gifted. I'll be the first to admit it. But the combination of awe and respect I heard in Tricia's voice is the reason I mostly stay away from other _paras_ when I work. "You're just like me, Tricia," I mumbled.

"You called, and She came." Tricia shook her head in wonder.

"Called who? Wilma?" Perquette finally gave in and stared at our mirrored images.

"No." I wasn't having this discussion while riding in the back seat of a patrol car. "Just sort of a focus I use to see."

Tricia took one look at my face and shut up. I guessed she was no more eager than I was to have the Goddess discussion.

"This is toward the end of Wilma's route," Perquette didn't pursue the question any further. "Haze is third from last delivery. There's her mailbox."

"Amazing."

Stepping out of the car, all I could think was that I'd never seen anything like it.

A thick mass of plants framed the log house like a fence, and ran as far as my eye could see on either side of the property back toward a wooded hill. Only a gap of ten to twelve feet of road frontage remained unplanted. I could smell oniony scent coming from tens of thousands of tiny violet-colored flowers that covered the largest planting of true wolf's-bane I'd ever seen, or heard of.

"Haze is quite a gardener. Coming in, Trish?" Perquette paused by the mailbox at the end of a dirt path that led from road to house.

"I'll wait. Say hello for me." Tricia closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the car seat.

"She doesn't like doing this kind of work," Perquette said.

"Who does?" I paused when I touched the porch railing. "I'm not whining. It just never gets any easier to look for death."

Perquette gave me a short, sharp nod. "Haze will be around back. She isn't in the house during the day."

I could tell that from looking at her.

The woman on her knees in the dirt, weeding and loosening soil with quick, deft fingers, was brown and gray, weathered like an old fence post. When she looked up from her work I could see her eyes were gray too, the color of summer rain clouds.

"Tom. Thanks for coming by." Haze got off her knees with a grimace, as if the process was painful. She removed her gardening gloves and whacked them against her thigh, leaving another smudge on already liberally smudged jeans.

"Haze, this is Elegy Jasper. She's the professional Old Robin recommended."

"Be welcome here."

I hesitated before I took the hand that Haze offered. My sight was still inactive, but I'd felt a slight tingle when I looked into her eyes. "Thank you."

Her fingers were warm and dry against my skin, her handshake firm. She let go of my hand, and her laughter filled the air around us.

Perquette looked at me. I shrugged.

"Don't mind me," Haze said cheerfully. "Inappropriate affect is only one of my eccentricities."

"She laughs in church sometimes, too." Perquette grinned. "When she comes."

"Let's go back 'round front. I left the package up there, didn't dare touch it again." The laughter left her face as she walked past us. "Nate took over Wilma's route. He came up to the house this morning with the mail because the box was full."

Haze led us to the front porch, and pointed at the small package sitting on a wooden bench next to the front door. "Whoever finished Wilma's route the day she got killed left that in my box."

"Whoever finished Wilma's route?" Perquette frowned. "We thought she finished the route before she was killed. Maud swears it was Wilma that left her mail Friday, around 1:00 or 1:15."

"Maud saw the hat, saw the car." Haze pulled at the fingers of her gloves, staring at the package. "I get packages nearly every day. Cuttings, bulbs, roots. Wilma always walked them back to the greenhouse, along with the other mail. I know she wasn't supposed to, but Wilma claimed it gave her a chance to stretch her legs. I haven't looked in the old mailbox for at least a year, Tom. Whoever finished Wilma's route knew the route, but didn't know she had a habit of doing that."

"Nobody delivered mail on Saturday?" I asked.

"No. Charlette scrambled for a replacement, but Nate wasn't available until today," Perquette said. He watched Haze closely. "Is there something else?"

"Ask her." Haze gestured at the package. "She's the psychic."

Something in the way she said the words, and I knew she was _para_ , too. But not psychic? I touched the heel of my hand to the brown paper wrapping, and there it was, strong, unfocused and -- for the moment -- undecipherable.

"You'll want to take it for fingerprints?" I stepped back and rubbed my hand against my hip. "Whoever left it was extremely disturbed."

"Wilma's killer finished her route," Haze said, like it was a certainty. "Drive the route with Elegy, Tom."

Perquette looked at her, then looked back at the car. "I have to take Tricia home, and check in at the office. Would you?"

Haze tucked her gloves under her belt, grinning. "That's not good police procedure, Tom."

"Just drive the route and bring her back into town." Perquette hitched up his pants and started toward the car. "No stopping, no investigating," he added over his shoulder. "That would be extremely bad procedure. I should be free by the time you get back."

 

We scooted along with the wind swooping through our hair, the speedometer needle seized by a tremor that never quite let it vibrate past the 15 mph mark. The old, topless Jeep that Haze had driven from a rickety shed looked like more like a Smithsonian relic than a viable means of transportation, but it growled and coughed its way gamely down the road.

"What's the story on all the wolf's bane?" I asked Haze, fishing a strand of hair out of my mouth.

"It's part of Old Robin's _were_ education program," Haze said as we coasted up to a mailbox shaped like a cow. "Tawshawsee County has nearly 200 registered _were_ , most of them raised here. We use the bane like traffic signals. Stop -- one-way -- do not enter; turned _were_ don't like the stuff, some have bad allergic reactions to it. We teach them to avoid it. It helps them remember to keep away from settled ground when they're changed." She pointed at the cow. "That's Maud's box."

I traced the outline of the door in the cow's chest, then opened the mailbox and stuck my hand inside. "Nothing." I pulled my hand back. "What would happen here if she was killed by a _were_?"

"It's never happened here," Haze said simply. "Like anywhere else in the country, we have citizens that don't like _paras_. But they aren't vocal, and radical viewpoints aren't tolerated by local law enforcement, government, or 99 percent of the population. In the last 100 years there has been no recorded -- or unrecorded -- instance of a _were_ harming a citizen."

"That's remarkable." I sat back in the lumpy bucket seat and waited for her to start driving again.

"You don't sound like you believe it." Haze touched the gas pedal and we traveled another 20 feet. She stopped the Jeep in the shade of a huge maple tree, and killed the engine. "It's not a statistical fluke. Generations of Tawshawsee County _para_ and non- _para_ have worked hard teaching, training and policing to achieve it."

"Do you think Wilma might have been killed by a _were_?"

"I think we need to find out how Wilma died. Quickly." Haze released the steering wheel, and settled her folded hands on her knees. She stared up at the mosaic bits of sky showing through the tree branches. "What did you see when you went under?"

Thoughts and sounds and shards of impression rose so swiftly that for a moment I wondered if she'd used a compulsion on me. I'd fished for these images since leaving the oak tree; now they bubbled and burst into waking dream.

 _Jukebox music, a rough country voice I recognized from a classic hit, and I was dancing with someone who turned my muscles to jelly, who was hard and hot and everything I wanted, and who left me there on the dance floor alone, alone, and it wasn't a dance floor but a spot of bare ground, and the walls were higher than the sky, higher and not walls at all but earth, earth around me above me in a pit, a trap, and I ripped the earth with my claws, but it wasn't earth and my palms bled from trying to score the grainy gray stone that boundried the pit, bled and stained the stone, smudged the cage bars . . . it was wrong, I was wrong, wrong smell, wrong taste, wrong, wrong, and I was crying, calling, crying . . ._

I heard it in my mind, sharp and pained, the same sound that Tricia Meyer had described. Like a beaten dog, left huddled in misery.

"Haze, I ..."

The rest of the vision hit me as I began to tell her what I'd seen. I knew my eyes were open but the Jeep and its driver, the maple tree, the fields beyond, all changed.

 _I sat in a church pew, the air was scented with incense, the light was subdued. The pew was opulently comfortable, covered with butter-soft leather the color of primroses. Small for a church, I thought, only a few rows of pews. The blood-red and black patterns in the stained-glass windows refused to focus as I stared at them._

 _Why had I thought it was a church? The pulpit was oddly shaped, almost phallic with a rounded top and an arrangement of dried statice obscuring the base. I stood, left the pew and walked up the aisle toward a low table in front of the pulpit, toward the book, toward the writing I knew would be on the open page. Letters squirmed and flowed onto the page as I watched, elegantly shaped letters with nasty kinks in the descenders._

 **So pleased you could stop by. So sorry I'm on the road. You know why you're here. You know what you want. Keep wanting, and I'll be along eventually. When I find you, all you have to do is ask. I'll give.**

"Elegy. Elegy. You're hurting me."

Reality shuddered back into place. My fingers held Haze's forearm with a death-tight grip.

"Sorry." Red welts showed on her skin as I pulled my fingers off her arm. "Oh, Haze. I really am sorry." My teeth chattered, my body seized by controllable shivering.

"You're in shock." Haze got out of her seat and opened the trunk, scuffling and rummaging until she found what she wanted. "For emergencies," she explained, draping an old woolen blanket over my shoulders and handing me a tarnished silver flask. "Cheap booze."

It went down my throat like lava, stole my breath and probably scarred my stomach. But the fire was good, it banished the shivers, cauterized the sickness I'd felt. The last phantom scent of incense was overwhelmed by the odor of old bike tires and corn chips that came from the blanket.

"It was bad." Haze took the flask from my limp fingers and tucked it under the seat. "Tell me."

"I don't want to. I don't want to say it." I could smell the booze on my own breath, whuffling past my nose with the cowardly, childish words. "Why can't it be somebody else following him around. Why me?"

There's no top ten "most wanted" _paras_. Officially there is only one _para_ on the FBI's criminal roster, with a second notorious _para_ who is also being sought by the witchfinders for deeds that were not only legally criminal, but reprehensible and unacceptable in the eyes of those two feared guardians of _para_ purity. Statistically a pretty good showing for a group that, by liberal estimates, comprises an eighth of the population. Whether this was because fewer _paras_ were criminal, fewer criminals were identified as _para_ , or a combination of the two reasons, I wasn't sure.

Making up for our overall good citizenship, the number one most wanted criminal in the nation was a _para_. The FBI called him Nicholas Sweet. The media called him the Giver. The witchfinders called him the devil.

"It was the Giver." I heard Haze's sharp intake of breath. "He's been here."

"Mother." Haze bowed her head, as if praying. "He's gone?"

"Of course." I clutched the blanket to me, trying to still my quivering knees. "The Giver's like the wind -- the only evidence of his existence comes with his passing."

Haze started the Jeep, spun us across the road, and headed back toward her house. "You're in no shape to finish the route," she said. "I'll call Tom and tell him you're staying with me tonight. We can talk about this when you're ready."

 

The tiny bedroom and half bath was an unexpected oasis. I stood under the hot water, leaning against the shower wall for a long time, until the only chill left in me was centered in a place physical heat would never reach.

Haze's towels were rough, heavy, and smelled of rain and lily-of-the-valley. I buried my face in the smell, such an old-fashioned smell, and felt my eyes sting.

Shit. I was just going to quit. There were other kinds of work I could do.

I dressed slowly, wishing I had the bags I'd left in Sheriff Perquette's office. Sitting on the bed, staring stupidly at my wrinkled toes, I began to smell something stronger than lily-of-the-valley. My stomach rumbled as I pulled on my limp socks and replaced my shoes.

"Whatever you're cooking smells heavenly."

Haze's hands were encased in brightly quilted oven mitts. She carried a stoneware dish from the oven to a heavy trivet on her small table.

"It's nearly six, that's my dinner time. You must be hungry."

I think it was primarily the odor of garlic that made me salivate, but there were aromatic herbs and rich tomato sauce scenting the air, too. "I am now."

We ate restaurant-quality eggplant parmesan, fresh salad, breadsticks that were crusty and chewy at the same time, and between us drank a bottle and a half of a dry fruit wine from unlabeled bottles.

"Feeling better?" Haze grinned as she refilled my wine glass.

"Oh yeah." I held the liquid up toward the light. "It's the color of a hummingbird's throat," I said. My cheeks were warm and I could feel a pleasant buzz from the wine. "I thought it was some kind of Zinfandel. What is it?"

"Rhubarb." Haze laughed aloud at my expression. "One of my friends makes it. It's got a high alcohol content."

"I can tell." Euphoria from a full stomach and plenty of highly alcoholic wine had pushed work from the forefront of my thoughts. "Thank you. That was a wonderful meal."

"You look better," Haze said. "You were chalk white for a few minutes. Would you like coffee? I expect Tom and Old Robin will be here in a few minutes."

"And I should be sober?" I watched her carry a pile of plates to the sink, then start the process of filling an automatic coffee maker. She hummed, tunelessly, and it came to me how easy she was with herself and her surroundings. Late afternoon sun glowed through the window over her kitchen sink, and as she filled the coffee pot my mind changed her from a slim, hard old woman. I felt an unaccustomed sensation of envy. Here was someone who found peace at home.

Haze turned, and caught me staring at her. "What is it?"

"Sorry. I didn't mean to peek. I'm still tuned-in." I couldn't tell her that, for a moment, she'd been covered with air-roots, blossoms, and ancient, peeling bark instead of skin. "You knew I went under, but Sheriff Perquette and I didn't speak about it. How?"

"When I touched you, for a moment I thought it was spring, and I was way behind on my planting." Her smile came from the deepest part of her, a serene, joyous place. "I felt Her in you. You must have gone under when you were trying to read the site where they found Wilma."

"You're _para_. Psychometrist?" I asked, sure of her answer.

"Yes. I'm not very strong. I'm not registered."

I understood the confidence. A lot of _paras_ preferred to risk a civil fine later in life, and keep their anonymity. I wasn't registered, myself, but that was a fluke. When I told the police who was responsible for the murders of the Kelly children, just after my thirteenth birthday, the accompanying notoriety had made the idea of registering seem unnecessary.

Haze finished clearing the table, and set three coffee cups and a cream pot in front of me. "Do you need sugar?"

"No thanks."

Boards creaked outside. "Come on in," Haze called out, before the visitors could knock.

"I smell breadsticks. Got any left?" Sheriff Perquette went straight past us, toward the kitchen.

"Help yourself, then pour coffee," Haze said. "Elegy, this is Robin Taylor."

He had stopped at the door, to prop it open with an iron doorstop shaped like a sunflower. When he straightened, and his eyes met mine across the room, I started to shiver again. But this time I wasn't cold.

"Sorry," he said, pushing a long braid of silver hair behind one ear. "I'm too old to try and hide it. I forget. Most everyone calls me Old Robin."

Undoubtedly _were_. Undoubtedly wolf. I'd seen that happy grimace on other big dogs, where they stretch their lips into a grin, baring canines as they ecstatically wag their hindquarters. Did wolves do that too? The smile Old Robin gave me just missed being canine by a nuance.

"Most everyone calls me Ell." He didn't offer his hand, and I was glad. Touching him just then would have been like an electric shock. "I'm sensitive right now."

"I can see that." Old Robin pulled away a chair from the table and sat down across from me.

How old was he? Silver braids, wrinkles around his deep-chocolate colored eyes and across his forehead told me he could be past 60, but he moved like he was young and strong. I suspected Old Robin spent more time "in the skin" than most _were_ did.

Perquette reached past me to pour coffee into the cups. "Haze told me you'd seen something, bad enough to send you into shock."

"It was bad." I splashed a few drops of cream into the coffee, and watched the dark beverage lighten in my cup. "When I tell you, it will change things. You'll have to call the FBI."

Perquette stood, coffee pot in hand, looking toward Old Robin. "Bring her to the office in the morning, or call later tonight if you have to. I'll be home." He replaced the coffee pot on the burner and left without another word.

"Friday night I ran with the full pack, deep in the state forest, out by Six Lakes." Old Robin sat and looked at us with his eyes half-closed, mouth slightly open as if tasting the air as he spoke. "Just after midnight I felt the darkness of a major black work brush our world. The pack was restless, but no one else knew what it meant."

Neither of them commented on the sheriff's departure. It told me a lot about how much was at stake here, and how much Perquette trusted the head of the _para_ community.

"The Giver was here."

A deep sound rumbled in Old Robin's throat. He leaned forward, hands on his knees. "That doesn't rule out _were_ involvement," he said. "The Giver didn't kill Wilma. That's not what he does."

"No." I thought about the national recession ten years ago, the classic Giver case, the one that had bumped him up to number one on the FBI's list. Someone had asked the Giver for wealth and power, and two large banks had suddenly collapsed, several heads of major investment companies committed suicide, and the economy was spiraling down the drain. The Giver was like an evil genie who followed his own twisted sense of humor, giving to those who were foolish enough to ask. Unlike the Christian devil that the witchfinders likened him to, the Giver asked no payment for his services. He picked his wishers carefully, and seemed to know with preternatural, unholy amusement, which gifts would cost both wisher and world the maximum in tribulation.

"She must have died as the result of a request." Old Robin stood. "Come on. Haze said you needed to finish driving the mail route. I'll take you."

"Be careful." Haze hugged Old Robin, laying her head on his chest for a brief moment, then turned to touch my shoulder. "The Giver's gifts don't usually result in only a single death."

 

We took the Jeep. Old Robin had evidently ridden with Sheriff Perquette, since no other vehicle was parked by the road.

"The wolf's bane. It doesn't bother you?" I asked as we left the oniony odor behind us.

"I'm used to it. Fortunately, I'm not allergic."

We passed the cow mailbox in silence. Old Robin downshifted when the next box came into view. Nothing. We repeated the sequence six times, wordlessly. I'd get out of my seat, touch the mailbox, concentrate, then climb back into the Jeep. Nothing.

At the seventh mailbox I stayed seated, and after a moment Old Robin made that growling noise again, his nose and chin held high as he breathed in through his mouth.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I was going to ask you the same question." He shut off the Jeep, and slid the key into a pocket. "I don't like the way it smells here. And that's odd, because Howard is a pack member. His land is marked. The _were_ musk is strong enough that even you should be able to smell it. But there's something overpowering the musk . . ."

"Sickness."

We said it together, then looked at each other and got out of the Jeep.

I had a hard time keeping up with him as he ran down the narrow dirt road that led into the woods. "Robin. Slow down. There's a house back here?"

"Half a mile." Old Robin waited for me to catch up. "Howard usually parks down by the road. He has to ski out in the winter. He likes his privacy."

"He's not here now?"

Old Robin started trotting again, and I picked up my own unwilling feet and kept close behind him.

"Probably not. He works in Belham, that's a forty-five minute drive from here. He's a K-9 trainer."

A strangely appropriate vocation, I thought, for a _were_.

The road opened up into an unmowed front yard of natural weeds and grass. The single-story house was badly in need of an exhaustive paint job, or vinyl siding.

Old Robin slowed to a walking pace. "I want to change."

The words were barely audible. I felt heat roll off Old Robin's body, and smelled something wild and musky. I moved away from him, quickly, knowing my own body was probably responding with a hot, wild scent that was purely reactionary.

A brief shudder trembled through his shoulders, like a dog twitching under an onslaught of fleas. "Something happened here, something that touched a _were_ , and left residual energy." He grinned and his canines seemed very long. "You smell wonderful, my dear. But you don't need to be concerned. I won't change."

"Darn." I almost meant it. "I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen a _were_ go into his skin." We walked around one end of the house. After a few seconds I could hear something other than the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears: the ceaseless soft static of wind against leaf, the solitary chirp of a bird, the rasp of an insect hiding near the foundation of the house, and the far-off whine of a motorized lawn mower or four-wheeler. "How old are you?"

Old Robin laughed, but didn't answer. We stepped over piles of crumbling cement blocks and stacked firewood in the untidy space behind the house. The windows that looked out toward the back were bare of drapery or shade, and reminded me of a row of dominoes waiting to be turned over. Old Robin considered the house for a brief moment, scented the air, then followed a footpath that led into the woods beyond.

"Whatever's wrong, it's back here. I think Howard has training runs and kennels he uses for special projects."

Special projects. The phrase echoed repeatedly in my mind as we caught sight of the heavy chain-link fence with the padlocked door. Special project . . . special project . . . The naked, filthy woman huddled in one corner of the covered end of the kennel shocked us both into numb silence.

I spoke first, stepping toward the fence. "Who are you? We're here to help you."

"Elegy." I felt Old Robin's hand on my shoulder. "Look at her."

I looked at him instead. I'd never heard that much horror in a human voice before. Usually people's voices go dead when they're reporting atrocities witnessed firsthand, until the tears start and the words will no longer come.

"He's keeping her prisoner? What do you see?" I demanded.

"You're stalling. Look at her."

 _Don't want to, don't want to . . ._ His hands turned me away from him, back toward the woman.

I saw. "Mother," I whispered, helplessly.

She was slim and the color of her skin could have been anything short of black, it was hard to tell through the filth that covered her naked body. Her hair was dark, brindled black and brown, long and matted around the face that stayed half hidden against her own shoulder. One of her hands moved, and I could see the palm was a mass of ragged flesh. Several of her fingernails hung, half ripped away. She whimpered, trying to find a deeper shadow to hide in. As she moved a stream of urine and diarrhea spilled down her leg onto the foully stained cement that lined the kennel run.

"Get away from her."

He'd come up behind us, silently, and he held a hand gun.

"Howard."

Old Robin stepped in front of me. I was trying not to throw up, more worried about that than the gun.

"I don't want to hurt either of you. Get her out of here, Robin."

Howard was a small man, very dark skinned, with fierce eyes and a rock-steady hand. The nausea passed, and I started to worry about the gun.

"She's an adult. You won't be able to train her," Old Robin said. "She's crazy, and there's nothing you'll ever be able to do about it."

"You don't know that!" Howard's voice shook. "I love her. She's mine. She can learn."

The details of my vision returned, and made perfect, terrible sense. This went beyond the body in the septic tank from the last case.

"She's not human." Old Robin took a step toward Howard. "She'll never learn."

I nearly choked on the musk that filled the air.

"Keep away. I will shoot you." Howard backed toward the padlocked door. Never taking his eyes from us, he unlocked the door then pulled it shut behind him, locking it again from the inside. The form of a woman in the corner began to make the same sounds I had heard in my vision.

"I saw her first when she was just a pup." Howard's voice had a dreamy, poetic resonance. "Mother, she was beautiful. I watched her grow up. I wanted her, but she wouldn't let me near her. I would have stayed in the skin for her, forever."

"Come out, Howard. We'll do our best to help both of you," Old Robin said thickly.

"He saw me near her, in the skin. He said, _tell me what you want_. I did." Howard walked toward the cringing shape on the floor, knelt in the filth and tried to put his arms around her. She flailed and bit at him, making a terrible noise. He held on, and there were wet streaks on his face as he pulled the trigger.

"I had to try. I had to try." He rocked her in his arms, and she changed, the matted, brindled hair flowing down the slender legs that were bending back into their proper shape. "I loved her."

"What happened to Wilma?" I asked urgently. I didn't think Howard had much time left to answer questions.

"It was an accident." He smoothed the hair between the wolf's ears, rubbing his cheek against the wet fur. "I don't know why she came back here. She left a package. She must have heard Mirabelle crying."

Of course he'd given the wolf a name. How long would it take me to stop dreaming about this horror?

"It was before I'd padlocked the door; it only had a bolt closure. When I came home, I found Wilma on the run. I had to track Mirabelle down in the woods, later." Howard looked at Old Robin. "You understand. It was an accident, she was only trying to get back to her pack."

"Howard. It's important for you to tell Tom about Mirabelle. The pack needs to know, too."

"You tell them." One smooth motion, the gun was against his forehead, and his face was expanding into a gruesome splatter of brightly colored pieces of flesh.

I didn't turn away but stood, with Old Robin at my side, looking through the fence for a long time.

 

 

It was dark before they finished with police procedure and carried the bodies off the run. I watched, leaning against a tree in a protective pocket of darkness while the professionals moved quickly around the starkly lighted kennel. Old Robin and I had given our statements. He remained to stand with Sheriff Perquette, and they talked with serious, intense expressions. I knew from their body language that some conclusion had been reached when Old Robin took several steps back from Perquette and bowed his head.

"Miss Jasper?" Perquette called.

"She's there." Old Robin's head swung around, and his eyes showed momentarily red in the artificial spotlights. "Under that tree."

They stepped into my darkness.

"Thanks for coming." Perquette offered his hand. "I'm sorry it was . . . what it was. Haze expects you to spend the night. I already had your bags dropped off. She'll take you to the airport tomorrow. Is that okay?"

I took his hand. "It is. It was a pleasure to meet you, and work with you."

"You'll be hearing from the Feds. We've sent your statements along, but they'll want to talk with you in person."

"I haven't seen Agent Sullivan in almost two months now," I tried to joke. "They know where to find me."

I wasn't sure if Old Robin was with me on the walk back to the Jeep until he climbed into the driver's seat. He didn't speak until we'd nearly reached Haze's property. At the top of a steep hill he pulled off the road. We sat looking down at the lights coming from homes scattered across the fields below us.

"I didn't know anyone who could have turned her back. Do you?"

"No." The heat of his body was toasting my left side. He would change, soon. "I've never heard of a reverse transformation. Outside of fiction, I've never even read it might be possible."

"Everything on earth holds the record and knowledge of our shared organic heritage. I knew of the theoretical possibility of such a change, but never thought to see an example." Old Robin's voice dropped half an octave, and sounded rough. "He has a wicked amount of power, whoever he is."

"Whoever." I was tired, and sick to my soul. There were clues no one should have to follow.

"Elegy -- Redbark's a good place to live. You'd find people here who understand, who face the same terrors you face. People you could talk to without holding anything back." Old Robin let out the clutch and we rolled over the crest of the hill. "I've lived beside normals all my life, and love, respect and appreciate most of them; but _paras_ need the comfort and closeness of our own. When we stay lonely, bad things happen."

He parked the Jeep in its shed, walked with me to Haze's front door, and didn't say good-bye. "I'm 75," he said.

I stopped, one foot on a porch step, but he was running toward the road, swallowed by the night.

Haze was under a blanket on the couch, reading. Her face was pale, and from the sorrow in her expression I knew whoever dropped my bags had also shared the bad news.

"Wilma's death can't be blamed on a _were_." I collapsed into a handy armchair. "They're calling it accidental death due to attack by a wild animal. They're going to say that Howard was trying to train a wolf, it got out of control, and he tried to cover up what happened. In the end he shot himself, and the wolf, out of guilt."

"They don't want to publicize the Giver's part in it." Haze shook her head. "People should know. People should know all of it."

"I'd be very surprised if the entire story wasn't in the tabloids by day after tomorrow," I said, closing my eyes. "Someone will spill the beans. News of the Giver is worth big money." More than anything I wanted to sleep, and obliterate the memory of a man holding a dead wolf.

"How did Old Robin take it? Howard was one of his pack."

"It affected him. He wanted to change all night, I could feel it."

"Go to bed." Haze's voice was gentle. "You're asleep on your feet. You won't have to get up early, Tom made you a reservation for late afternoon."

"Thanks." I staggered upright. "I wonder, can you tell me? Does Old Robin usually invite _paras_ to move to Redbark?"

The expression on her face woke me up. She stared at me with an unsettling mixture of amazement and amusement.

"Hell, no. He might even have discouraged a few. The _para_ population's growing fast enough without recruiting." Haze looked like a kid who'd been given a new bike. "The old wolf. Exactly what did he say to you?"

"Not much, just that it's a good place to live," I evaded. "I'm going to bed now."

I kicked off my shoes and crawled into bed without washing my face or even removing my day clothes. I lay in the dark, legs tingling from fatigue, mind spinning a fantasy scene of a full moon and a silver wolf loping through tall, black grass. It was a strangely peaceful, compelling fantasy.

I fell asleep wondering what the clues would look like in the morning.


End file.
